


He Doesn't Have Johnny

by brooklynisosm



Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Other, Sad, dead best friend, my poor cinnamon rolls, ponyboy is a sad boy, you get to decide if this is love or what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 03:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7296868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brooklynisosm/pseuds/brooklynisosm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t have Johnny and the world is coming apart at the seams. </p>
<p>or, Ponyboy's grief is slowly consuming him. </p>
<p>Slight AU considering in the book he gets on with his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Doesn't Have Johnny

Ponyboy doesn’t have Johnny.

It has been months and still he aches like his body is one giant bruise, and each mention of his best friend is another punch. The bruise is ugly, blue and purple and brown, growing, and it isn’t healing.

Ponyboy’s body is a collection of broken blood vessels held together by strength of will. Though he doesn’t feel strong at all.

He doesn’t have Johnny and it’s bad. Every day, every minute, every second he’s reaching out. He says something and turns his head a little to see Johnny grin and- punch. Johnny was abused by his parents but Ponyboy is abused by his mind. He stumbles and expects Johnny to catch his arm and instead he falls. He waits for Johnny to help him up and ends up lying face-down in the grass for hours until Soda finds him and Darry carries him home. He can’t stand up by himself, not under the weight of his grief. That’s a burden only Johnny could take away.

He doesn’t have Johnny and it’s terrible. He’s looking at Gone With the Wind on his bedside table and feeling like he’s going to throw up except there’s nothing in his stomach because he isn’t hungry. He’s watching a sunrise because he can’t sleep anymore and nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold, her early leaf’s a flower, but only so an hour… he has to say the poem, he has to say it or else he won’t breathe.

_Stay gold, Ponyboy_ , he thinks. _Stay gold_ , he writes all over his arm instead of taking notes in class. Stay gold, Ponyboy, and don’t go crazy. He’s already crazy. Everyone knows he’s crazy. He has to stay gold. He has to stay-

He doesn’t have Johnny and it’s the worst thing ever and he thinks he understands Dally now.

Johnny was special. Like seeing a coin in the gutter and thinking it’s a penny and pulling it out and realizing it’s a quarter. Ponyboy could do anything with a quarter, go anywhere. His other friends are nickels and dimes but Johnny was his own class. Johnny was his own chapter in Ponyboy’s story while others get a paragraph; Johnny was the fleeting sunrise while the gang is endless midday.

It’s torture, thinking _Johnny was_. Johnny _was_. Darry, Two-Bit, Soda, Steve- they are is. There will never again be an _is_  for Johnny except _Johnny is dead_.

He doesn’t have Johnny and the world is coming apart at the seams. Wherever Johnny should be is a tear in Ponyboy’s universe, and more it seems like his universe is ripped to shreds. Johnny has left an empty place in the gang. An empty place in the living room. An empty place in Dallas. An empty place in Ponyboy, a black hole swallowing him inside out because he doesn’t have Johnny.

_He doesn’t have Johnny._

He’s not gold without Johnny.


End file.
